Coup de Grâce
by The Fanged Geranium
Summary: He leaves her on a Sunday morning.
1. Chapter 1

Mr. and Mrs. Potter are not meant to be. There won't be a simple wedding, with a glowing bride, and a disheveled groom to tuck a streak of red behind her ear and say, "I do." There won't be two (eight) little children running around the house, grabby hands and sticky faces and smiling mouths and green, green eyes. There won't be any more quarreling, either, which he supposes is a relief. Their last row was ages ago, and she really gave it to him, throwing and shouting and crying, but that was then, and now their end is resigned, tired. No shouting, no accusing, just two people, peeling off into different, separate lives.

He leaves her on a Sunday morning, while she's reading _The Daily Prophet, _innocently tucking into an early breakfast.

"What are you doing?" she asks, not looking away from the paper, a crease between her eyes as she concentrates on the front page story.

"We need to talk" He feels numb when she raises her gaze to meet his, green eyes wide and sad and _betrayed_.

She shakes her head. An hour later, her things are packed down to two suitcases, and she looks terribly displaced, but if Lily Evans is anything, it's efficient and prideful. "If you're – if you're certain. I don't want to... hold you back. It was good, James. It was."

She nods, steadying herself. She's about to leave, for good, she thinks, when the cat round the corner and rubs against her leg. She crouches down, scratches between his ears, and James stares at the crown of her forehead, where a snowy pale scalp makes a beautiful line with her ginger hair, and his body jolts to life. _What have I done?_

"Well," she says, and then she doesn't say anything, just opens the door and walks through it, closing it silently behind her.

If James hates anything, it's _losing_. And everything about this reeks of defeat – the empty space beside him in bed, her practical mint toothpaste, absent beside his bubblegum tube, the vacancies where _she _had so plainly existed... The house is so empty without her it feels crowded with absence, and sadness, and he feels sick walking into his own bedroom, where things used to be so beautifully _theirs_.

He tries to move on, because this is all his doing, really, and he shouldn't be the one irreparably damaged. Peter suggests that he goes through the motions, but it doesn't work fast enough for him. James Potter is an impatient creature – it's why he could never play seeker. He doesn't possess the patience to sit high above the action, eyes scanning the pitch for a single, elusive flash of gold. It's why he's on the front lines of the war (even though there are no front lines – the war is everywhere and nowhere, surrounding them and inside of them). He can't plan, sit back and watch things fall into place – it just isn't in his nature. It's why he goes out and gets hammered with Marlene McKinnon, stumbles back to her flat with the intention of taking her to bed, and ends his night crying on her couch, head in her lap, a soothing hand stroking messy black hair. "Its not fair," he chokes, and she rolls her eyes, pats his head, because he's being a bit pathetic, really when he's the one who broke it off officially.

It's a month later when he sees her again, just a flash of red hair in Diagon Alley, popping into Flourish and Blotts, probably for a new book. He sees her for an instant, then she's gone, and it was just enough time to rip him in two.

It's a month after that when he sees her plastered on the cover of _Quidditch World_, her face shielded by a comically large sunhat, hand in hand with Alder Bretsky, his face shielded by a mammoth hand.

His halves ripped into halves.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, she reads about herself.

_Quidditch_ _World_ pegs her as a mysterious redhead, ever elusive and delightfully shy. Apparently, her face-obscuring hats and laughably-long trench coats are endearing to the public. She flips idly through the magazine, spots herself peering out of a suspicious-looking alleyway, her shopping backs held defensively in front of her, as if she's going to be attacked. She likes _Quidditch World _because they have rather kindly opinions of her, and they mostly focus on Alder's rags-to-riches success story and less on his decidedly ginger, decidedly camera-shy girlfriend. _Witch Weekly_ dubs her "prudish and cold". She laughs at this, cooped up in Alder's spacious, bright flat, because laughing is better than crying, and there's a lot she can be crying for.

Propping her feet up on the table, her eyes flit to the clock. Three o'clock. If she were in Godric's Hollow, she would be prying open a fresh can of cat chow, and Cinnamon would be weaving between her feet, purring happily. She misses his warm weight on her feet.

She misses a lot of things.

Right on time, though, Alder slips through the door, chasing away her nostalgic thoughts. He pauses in the doorway and smiles like he couldn't be happier to see her curled up on his sofa, looking like she positively belongs there.

She doesn't.

"Hi, Lily," he says, and his voice fills the otherwise silent room.

"Hi, Alder," she breathes, closing the magazine and placing it on the glass coffee table, surveying him through tired green eyes. He takes up the entire doorway, his height and broad chest a far cry from skinny James. His blond hair is cropped short to his head, neat and uniform, and his angular face lights up at the sight of her in a way that makes her stomach twist. Blue eyes crinkle into a smile. He crosses the room in a few strides, taking a seat beside her on the couch. Lily looks at him, eyes somewhat dull, and smiles. She doesn't love him like she loves – loved – James, but she loves him, all the same. When his arms snake around her little frame, her arms remain limp at her sides, but she rests her cheek in the crook of his neck, appreciating the warmth there.

"How was your day?" he asks, and she shakes her head, closing her eyes, trying to exist in the space between his shoulder and his chin, no further.

His smile droops, but he rests his chin on her head, stroking her freckled arm. "Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?"

She shakes her head, leans on him a bit. "I'm a bit tired."

"Alright." There is a long silence, during which she tries to find his heartbeat. Her cheek brushes the soft fabric of his shirt, and he makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat.

"I love you. You know that, right, Lily?"

"Yes," she answers, closing her eyes and letting her air out in a smooth stream.

Their love is not epic. It is not enviable, or romantic. It is understanding. Alder understands Lily. Lily understands Alder. They have a mutual understanding of each other. Alder understands the vital truths about Lily, which makes their love possible.

He understands why she can't say _I love you, too, _and why she likes to be alone, mostly, except when she doesn't, and then she wants to be held. He doesn't ask "Why?" when she sometimes leaves and doesn't come back for days. He lets her be on bad days, and doesn't complain because every kiss feels like goodbye forever. He understands, and he accepts. He's very accommodating in that way, and Lily knows this should please her. She knows she should be happy. And yet, her smiles become smaller, her kisses more desperate, her disappearances longer, and she feels like a caged animal, pacing his apartment. Her life is a parade of people she loves, fading, slipping away, leaving her. Petunia, Severus, her parents, one by one, falling into the night. Now James. She lives each day fearing that Alder too shall pass. She used to believe she just put her faith in the wrong people, but with each passing day, Lily realizes that maybe she is the problem.

And that hurts worst of all.


End file.
